So it's the most hideous time of the year: the time when we realize how much holiday knitting we've got left to do between now and the assorted winter holidays and how slim the odds are of us actually doing it.

There was this one glorious year where I had all my holiday knitting done by Nov. 1 or so. I believe I bragged about it, which is probably why at the moment I've got five pairs of socks and an adult-sized poncho left to knit, plus a nice case of carpal tunnel and the bone-chilling knowledge that to ship it all back East in time I need to get it all done no later than Dec. 8 or so.

Yes, it's that bad.

The message seems pretty clear: That one year I got everything done early was a fluke on par with Halley's Comet hitting an extraterrestrial handing out lollipops in Pioneer Square during a blizzard in July. And the only way I'm going to meet my deadlines is if I manage to grow a second pair of hands and keep them carpal tunnel free.

Feel my joy.

So you're gonna blow your holiday knitting deadlines. Do you . .online surveyAll this is intensely distressing, partly because I'm obsessive about deadlines (20-odd years in the newspaper business will do that to a person), and partly because I made the mistake of knitting for an awful lot of people for an awful lot of years, and now I'm worried that that they'll be hurt if I end up -- horror of horrors -- buying them something. Worse, I worry they'll be happy that I didn't knit for them this year. (And yes, if they were happy I didn't knit for them, I could cut them from my list of knitted gift people, reduce my carpal tunnel risk and ease by holiday stress. Except then I'd be hurt, and hell, it wouldn't really reduce my CT risk because I'd just be knitting for someone else, or for me, right? And is it possible for nonknitters to understand all that? I don't think so, because when I've tried to explain it they tend to edge away and look frightened. It's possible the problem is my wild-eyed, gesticulating-with-knitting-needles delivery.)

View full sizeMary Mooney/The OregonianThis is Pip, age 3 months, with his patented "Why don't you love me enough to knit me a blanket for Christmas?" look. He and his darn-near-identical brother, Liam, are doing splendidly, by the way, when they're not sending me on a guilt trip or slowing down my knitting with coordinated yarn attacks.

So anyway. Have any of you had to bail on holiday projects at the last minute?

Anyone had to tell someone who loves your socks that they're not getting any this year?

Most importantly, did you feel like you were snapping Tiny Tim's crutch when you did it?

(Listen, not to brag -- we all know how that comes back to haunt me -- but I've had people whine about getting perfectly nice gift cards because they wanted socks. They make these big puppy dog eyes, even. And I think it's genuine, because who else besides a serious sock person would react that way to getting a gift card to Lush?)

So as the holidays edge ever closer, I'm alternating frantic bouts of painkiller-stoked knitting with wringing my achy hands and repeatedly revising my list of People For Whom I'm Willing to Cripple Myself. (It's short. And getting shorter.) And I'm reminding myself that people who know me well know that the mark of my disfavor is not when I stop knitting for you. It's something far more sinister: Machine-knit socks. From Walmart.

That, friends, is the knitting equivalent of a horse head in a bed. Only easier to wrap.